tiabunna's photos with the keyword: rusty

Moruya was a source of very high quality granite, with several quarries alongside the Moruya River. Most people would recognise the Sydney Harbour Bridge - the granite for the towers at the ends of the arch came from Moruya. It was taken up the coast on barges, and this wreck is (as far as I'm aware) the only surviving remains of one of those barges. Second image in PiP. Explored.

The remains of an old barge, used in the 1930s to transport Moruya granite to Sydney for construction of the Harbour Bridge towers.

After the Special Constables were killed, the bounty on the Clarke brothers increased, as did the numbers of police in the Braidwood district. It seems that a combination of diminishing community support after the murders, plus the higher rewards, led to the police being told the Clarkes' hiding place. During the night, five police surrounded the bush hut (the actual hut, now gone, was made of vertical slab timber, as in PiP #1). Early in the morning of 29 April 1867, the Clarkes came out with saddles, intending to ride away, but saw the police. Retreating back inside under a hail of police bullets, John Clarke was hit in the shoulder. As they retreated, Tom managed to get away some shots, hitting an Aboriginal tracker in the arm and slightly wounding a policeman on the leg. There followed a six hour armed standoff with occasional shooting from both sides. The Clarkes apparently were awaiting darkness to escape, the police for reinforcements. Finally, another seven mounted police arrived and called on the Clarkes to surrender. Tom Clarke recognised the game was up and also knew the leader of the new group of police, so they lay down their arms, came out, surrendered, and shook hands with the police ! (PiP #2). Interestingly, there must have been a photographic studio in Braidwood, because there are several photos of Tom and John Clarke, after their capture. John has his wounded arm in a sling. I mention a photographic studio because they appear in front of what seems to be a photographic background of the type used in studios of the time. (Pip#3). Time to add an appropriate musical link.

A very old and rusted water tank. It's full of holes, some matched by others on the far side (light spots) and others without an opposite match. Best viewed large. On with the bushranger story. The "Special Constables" (bounty hunters) tried to pass themselves off as surveyors - but clearly knew nothing of the area near Braidwood and did not even have a theodolite. Needless to say, nobody was taken in! Not long after their arrival, as they sat around their campfire at night, some people fired a few shots at a tree between them (they fired back). Whoever attacked also riddled their tent with as many holes as this water tank. A warning?

It's interesting to consider what once may have been the uses for this old horse-drawn steam engine. It's now parked alongside the road outside a rural property. Explored.

Playing with the "Rule of Thirds" while taking this old abandoned railway wagon. Best on black. Explored.

From an old slide. Macquarie Island was found by sealers in 1810. They promptly exterminated the resident fur seals for their pelts, then began on the elephant seals for their blubber to extract oil. By the late 1800s, there were too few elephant seals for that to be viable, so they began on the penguins. These rusty boilers were "penguin digesters", used to cook countless thousands of King and Royal penguins for their oil. The trade was halted after the Australian Antarctic Expedition of 1911-13 raised public consciousness of what was being done. The explorer Sir Douglas Mawson began a campaign to have the island declared a sanctuary, though even in 1919 there were efforts (which were opposed) to revive the industry. To quote the photographer Frank Hurley (who had wintered in Antarctica with Mawson and Shackleton) writing in the Sydney Morning Herald of 17 August 1919: "I can only term the destruction there as grim tragedy, the remembrance of which makes me shudder still.... The penguins are mustered like sheep and ...." ... (I shall spare you the details) "....it is one of the most pitiful sights I have ever witnessed..... This wanton butchery takes a toll of some 150,000 birds annually..." These digesters are at a point known as The Nuggets, others are at Lusitania Bay on the east coast. These remains of the "bad old days" were still there in 2005, but they are in areas where tourists are not allowed to land. Maybe appropriately, best viewed on black (press Z).